


Never One For Marriage

by Mistamie



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst?, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Post-Hobbit, Spoilers for hobbit, Thilbo, bagginshield
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 22:42:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mistamie/pseuds/Mistamie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo Baggins never married, though he lived a long, long life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never One For Marriage

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for end of The Hobbit, set in between the Hobbit and LOTR.

Bilbo Baggins never married, though he lived a long, long life.

It was odd for a hobbit never to enter into matrimony and wedded bliss, especially such a well-to-do hobbit as Mr. Baggins.  Many whispered it was his ruined reputation.  Adventures, dear me, what unseemly behavior for such a well-born hobbit! “Must have been his Tookish side,” they all whispered.  After all, adventures make you late for dinner!

Some even refused to believe it was truly Mr. Baggins, (but really, the Sackville-Baggins just wanted his hobbit-hole for themselves!) and believed him an imposter. 

Others simply thought he’d just plain forgotten to get married, and left it at that.  Some others still beyond that believed it to be that he’d come home from his adventures changed, his mind different. 

Bilbo had changed on his adventure, but it hadn’t been his mind.  It had been his heart.

One would usually find Bilbo on his lawn, sitting on a bench, blowing out his smoke rings, and staring off into the distance.  Off, it could be said, towards Lonely Mountain.  No longer did he really care about being _late_.  After all, there was no one waiting for him that truly warranted any rushing about.  The last person he’d rushed for laid under the ground, Orcrist and the Arkenstone alongside him.  The last time he’d truly felt the horrid embarrassment and anxiety of lateness had been that May morning when he’d run out of the Shire after the dwarfs.

Yes, Bilbo wasn’t a normal sort of hobbit anymore.  He was calmer, slower, and a bit heartbroken.  What lady-hobbit could ever compare with a dwarf-king, the mighty Thorin, King Under the Mountain? 

Everyday he wished to see him once more, and every night, he felt the loneliness of the dark.  There was no chorus of thirteen different snores.  There was no warmth at his back of a companion favored over all others.  Everyday he hoped to hear a rapping at the door, another unexpected party, another raiding of the pantry, and another offer of an adventure that this time would be answered without hesitation.  How he longed to hear dwarfish song once more, dwarfish voice, his voice.  Bilbo even held open-ended conversations sometimes, always pausing a moment before continuing, always hoping for an answer not his own…

Bilbo had been convinced he was to forever live a solitary life, one he’d once longed for, yet now found distasteful in reflection of the company that might have been his.  In curing this melancholy, Frodo was a blessing, a son he’d never dared hope for.  His presence filled some of the emptiness.  There was a bit less listening for noises that wouldn’t come, and less conversations left for the wind to answer.

Of course, there were times when Frodo had questions that couldn’t be answered, or matters grew too close to an exposed nerve, but it was once more that there was more than one voice in the hobbit hole at Bag End.

And so Bilbo wrote answers to those questions as best he could, leaving out certain pieces here and there, not daring to reveal the true loss of the dwarf-king, not daring to admit it to himself out loud even after all these years what had truly been lost along with Thorin, his heart.

And as Frodo left on his own adventure with the ring, Bilbo sat back and smiled in his chair in his hobbit hole.  It wouldn’t be long now Thorin.  Soon, Bilbo would come home.


End file.
